Flora Medica

DIOSPYRUS.one bearing 2 anthers ; anthers subulate, fixed by the base.Style 4-cleft, sometimes 2-parted, often trifid. Fruit succulent,globose, 8-celled, with the permanent calyx at the base. Seedssolitary, compressed.797. D. melanoxylon Roxb. carom, i. 36. t. 46. Willd. iv. 1 109.Roxb.fl. ind. ii. 531. Mountainous woods of Ceylon, Malabar,Coromandel, and other parts of India. (Ebony Tree.)Trunk tolerably straight in large trees, from 20 to 25 feet to thebranches, and about 8 or 10 in circumference. Bark scabrous, ordeeply cracked, somewhat spongy, colour a mixture of grey and black,in irregular strata. Branches very irregular, numerous, rigid, forming alarge spreading shady head : young shoots very downy. Leaves nearlyopposite, short petioled, oblong, entire, obtuse, when young very downy,when old pretty smooth ;about 4 inches long, and 1^ broad. Stipules0. Male peduncles axillary, single, short, bearing 3 or 4 small whitishflowers, supported by short bowing pedicels. Bractes a small one atthe insertion of each pedicel, and 1 or 2, still smaller pressing the calyx.Calyx and corolla as in the genus. Filaments generally 12 or 13,short, inserted into a receptacle. Anthers linear, erect. Ovary 0.Hermaphrodite flowers rather larger than the male, axillary, single,nearly sessile. Bractes, a small one pressing the calyx. Calyx always5-cleft, downy. Corolla 5-cleft. Filaments about 10, short, insertedinto a receptacle between the ovary and flower. Anthers small, seeminglysterile. Styles 3, nearly erect; stigma bifid. Berry round, of thesize of a small apple, yellow, pulpy. Seeds as many as 8, immersed inthe pulp, kidney-shaped, sharp on the inner straight edge. Roxburgh.The Ebony tree is valuable, not only on account of its wood, but forthe sake of its bark which is astringent, and mixed with pepper is givenfor the dysentery by the native doctors of India.798. D. virginiana Linn, spl-P 151 0- MM> diet. ic. 1. 126.Willd. iv. 1107. United States.A large tree. Leaves ovate, rather blunt, shining, smooth, netted,with downy stalks. Leafbuds smooth. Bark said to be a powerfulastringent and febrifuge..STYRACE^.Nat. syst.ed. 2. p. 227.STYRAX.Calyx rather campanulate, nearly entife or 5-toothed. Corollacampanulate at the base, deeply 3-7-cleft. Stamens 6-16,389 c c 3